Brian Cox hopes memoir doesn’t put ‘full stop’ on his life

Actor Brian Cox attends HBO's "Succession" season 3 premiere in New York on Oct. 12, 2021. Cox has written a memoir titled ""Placing the Rabbit within the Hat." (Picture by Charles Sykes/

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LONDON (AP) — Ending a guide is often trigger for celebration. Not for actor Brian Cox.

The guide in query, “Placing the Rabbit within the Hat,” out now, chronicles the actor’s journey from humble beginnings in Dundee, Scotland, to being the toast of Hollywood, due to his Emmy nominated position in hit drama “Succession.”

He mentioned finishing the guide triggered him to sink right into a despair over the Christmas and New 12 months interval, including that he hopes it “hasn’t put a full cease” on his life.

“I used to be feeling, ‘Is that each one there's? That’s the summation of my life?’ I don’t need it to be the summation of my life. I wished it to be an illustration of the place my life had gone to,” mentioned Cox, including, “I’m certain there’s extra.”

Regardless of his considerations, the veteran actor discovered the expertise “liberating and cathartic,” permitting him to honor his late mother and father, who Cox describes as “two very tragic figures in my life.” His father, Charles, died when Cox was 8, and his mom, Mary Ann Guillerline, had a number of nervous breakdowns.

Born in 1946, as one among 5 youngsters, Cox describes his childhood as “bloody powerful and bloody lonely” — and he thinks his struggles will shock readers.

“I hope they’re going to be stunned by my background. I hope they’re going to be stunned about what a boy from the age of 8, from the age of 15, needed to undergo. And that, to me, is essentially the most key factor concerning the guide — simply this child who's actually deserted by all people, not solely via circumstance, it’s no one’s fault,” he mentioned.

Regardless of the hardships of his youth, Cox describes his journey into appearing as clean, thanks partly to the social mobility of the Nineteen Sixties. He’s unsure if working class actors could be afforded the identical alternatives in 2022.

“God bless Dominic West and Benedict Cumberbatch and Eddie Redmayne and all that. They usually’ve performed very nicely. And I don’t query their expertise, they’re actually gifted. However what concerning the others? What concerning the misplaced ones?” he mentioned.

He jokes that folks may additionally be stunned by his outspokenness all through the guide, however provides that “possibly some individuals assume, ‘Properly, he’s all the time had an enormous mouth, Cox, so it’s comprehensible.’”

This outspokenness is echoed by Logan Roy — the foul-mouthed patriarch Cox performs in HBO’s Emmy profitable comedy “Succession.” The success of the present has seen Roy’s catchphrase comply with him wherever he goes.

He mentioned he lately went to a New York Knicks basketball recreation and an enormous part of the group serenaded him with one among Roy’s extra signature expletives. Cox mentioned his Roman Catholic mom could be horrified that her son is now synonymous with an obscenity.

The writers of “Succession” are at the moment plotting season 4 and Cox is ready to see what destiny befalls Logan.

“I don’t know what it’s going to be, we by no means know till it's as a result of that’s not the deal. The deal is the scripts are out, you do it,” mentioned Cox, smiling.

He says that a few of his fellow solid members foyer the writers with their concepts about character arcs for the upcoming sequence, that are “dutifully ignored,” including, “They by no means study the lesson that the writers usually are not all for what the actor desires to current for himself.”

The truth is, he's content material with precisely how Logan is written: “There’s a secret aspect to Logan that you may’t actually get into him. His thriller is sort of essential to me,” he mentioned.